More on my fiction writing

October 21, 2013

Secession with benefits

The Battle of Antietam, 1862, where my great- great-uncle, fighting in the Confederate division from Texas under Gen. John Bell Hood, was fatally wounded.

What "Soleri" called the Cold Civil War is underway. The game of shutdown/default chicken, with grave consequences for America's economy and standing in the world, is only the latest manifestation. Although the worst was avoided, it is only a temporary truce. Republican House members representing about 18 percent of the population, were able to hold 100 percent of the nation hostage.

There is talk in places such as Texas of secession, and in Arizona and other states of nullification, choosing which federal laws to follow, hearkening back to the crises the preceded the Civil War. But these and the fetish about the debt and deficit, as well as the size of government, are carried out with high hypocrisy.

The reality is that almost all states of the New Confederacy — the old South, plus parts of the Great Plains and intermountain West — are net takers. In other words, they receive more federal money than they pay in taxes. For example, Arizona, whose entire Republican delegation voted against the compromise to reopen the federal government, received $1.60 for every dollar paid. In South Carolina, the cradle of secession, the ratio is $2.13 to $1.

Between 24 percent and 26 percent of the households in metro Phoenix receive Social Security benefits. In Tucson, the rate is between 29 percent and 38 percent. Both have high percentages of families on food stamps (and many of these are working). The "Sun Corridor" also has some of the highest use of veterans benefits.

And remember, Arizona and especially Phoenix wouldn't even exist as a modern, populous place without massive federal expenditures: To pacify the Apache, bring water through the Newlands Act and the Central Arizona Project, establish major flood control systems and subsidize first agriculture and then a huge influx of suburban population growth.

Even red-state tea partiers who are happy to let the "47 percent" starve in the streets want their trillions in military and "homeland security" spending, agriculture payments and subsidies to the fossil fuel industries. Their representatives vote against disaster aid for blue areas while demanding it for themselves.

Although Texas is virtually alone among the red states as a net giver, this comes in large measure from decades of high-quality federal investment in infrastructure and university research. Plus, it is a petroleum superpower, still.

The billionaires who bankroll the tea party and Republican extremism in general are all sucking at the teet of the taxpayer, whether by getting subsidies for fossil fuels or gambling in a financialized economy. Companies such as Wal-Mart, a huge GOP backer, depend on state and federal government to provide health care and food stamps for their low-wage workers.

The old white people protesting against Obamacare all depend on Medicare, a single-payer government program with much more efficiency and lower administrative costs than private insurance companies. Remember "keep your government hands off my Medicare"?

So there is no coherence to their position. Not even an honest debate.

In the first Civil War, it was brother against brother (in my family, this was literally true). Secession had consequences. The battle lines in the Cold Civil War are more complicated.

For example, they run between metropolitan areas and more far-flung suburbs, exurbia and rural America. Take Seattle and some other parts of the Puget Sound region out of Washington state and it would be Idaho — solid red. In Arizona, central Phoenix runs blue, but not enough to return a two-party system to the state.

Blue metros in the main produce the economy from which the tea partiers benefit, yet they despise these urban centers and seek to undermine them at every opportunity.

With national Democrats asleep in 2010, Republicans captured state legislatures and redistricted to perpetuate red rule in the New Confederacy. GOP congressional districts became more white. Constituents, afraid of a changing country, brainwashed by Fox "News" and talk radio, don't understand that their enemies are the plutocrats. Instead, it's the blacks and Hispanics and especially the Kenyan Islamic socialist who is an illegitimate president.

So of course there will be no "soul searching" after this temporary defeat, no "battle for the Republican Party." This is it. What you see and hear (so loudly) is what you get. It is a party of nihilism, ignorance, bigotry and short-term looting. Nor will it go the way of the Whigs. It will, however, take the country down — slowly, or suddenly.

The white-right rabble is too ignorant to realize that they could not even have their Ayn Rand fantasies if the country didn't have a large and economically vital federal government. Their puppetmasters, the authors of "one dollar, one vote," are in the game for the short-haul and profiting handsomely.

With a huge standing military and militarized law enforcement, it is tempting to think that the nation-state is secure from any 1861-like breakup. I'm not so sure. Let the rot continue for awhile and see. The number of Bolsheviks in Tsarist Russia were only around 25,000 in a nation of 160 million. Yet Lenin was able to persuade and terrorize enough army units to revolt against the state. The Reds were met in combat by other units, the Whites.

By the way, am I the only one who thinks there's a creepy resemblance between Ted Cruz and Joe McCarthy?

Yes, some of these arguments go back to the founding of the republic. And the paranoid style of American politics, exemplified by Tailgunner Joe, is deep. But the breakdown in governance has reached a level not seen since the eve of the first Civil War. So is the tea party conviction that everyone else is trying to "change their way of life." When Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

One other thing to remember: Portions of the armed forces are heavily populated by right-wingers and fundamentalist Christians, right up into the officer ranks. This is yet another way the military is alienated from the mainstream of civilian life in much of the country, especially in diverse blue zones. Think that doesn't carry the potential for dangerous consequences? Just wait until the next shock from the criminal class on Wall Street or attack on Das Homeland.

This is why I think we need a new amendment that allows for peaceful secession. It might result in a redrawing of state lines. West Virginia, after all, was once a few counties of the Old Dominion. I say: Let them go in peace. Let them see what their world looks like without the tyranny of federal dollars.

Jon, per the "big dog boys" buy more Colt Pythons and ammo as often as possible. Buy land in Idaho with good soil and water. Find a reliable gardener. Change your name to John Galt III.

Reb, the ballot box aint no solution. We won the last civil war, its time to load and UNLOCK. Screw Cruz, from what I know about folks born in Quebec, they are French pansies. Cruz aint Napoleon he is just a French sissie with a big mouth that over loads his ass.

You're not alone in this dismal forecast. See Peter Turchin writing about the Road to Disunion: "The disquieting conclusion from this more recent analysis is that we are still firmly on track to some kind of a social and political upheaval during the coming decade or so."

"Will some future historian write a book, titled The Impending Crisis, 2008–2021? We are not quite in 1854 yet, but the current Republican-Democratic Party System is already showing the signs of fragmentation."

From the Salon Article The business of America is war in the above Front Pages.

"“War is a racket,” General Smedley Butler famously declared in 1935, and even now it’s hard to disagree with a man who had two Congressional Medals of Honor to his credit and was intimately familiar with American imperialism."

Having learned what happens when giant babies are elected to govern the United States, Americans are very disgusted with their government. They like the Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and Obamacare and Prescription Drug Benefits, but they don't like democracy, which is a pretty weird way to run a country.
... Democrats blame the Republicans for everything, even as their own beloved president looks more and more like Richard Nixon: a paranoid and inept bungler who can't seem to turn an overwhelming mandate into success.
... That rich white people were expected to do their lobbying and governing from a poor black city with no government representation was always a cosmic prank, and few will mourn the end of the "federal city." But what's next?
Stability will be very important, for the rich. Without stability, currencies collapse and markets plunge.
... Life may be better or it may be worse or it may be roughly the same, with the very rich still very rich. (There will be no appreciable change in Florida.)

If you missed the info from the Facebook poll (over 100,000 responded) that showed 65% felt the Govt Shutdown was the fault of the Democrats...(Liberal media would NEVER report the actual figures).....and the Washington poll was 57% felt the Democrats were at fault..

Larry, I never looked good with an armband. Reb, the ACA is being done by private contractors. Remember, this was originally cooked up by the Heritage Foundation, rolled out by Romney, as a "market-based" solution. Medicare works fine with much lower admin costs than the private insurers.

Sidebar: McCain is talking about running for another term. Even in his dotage, he has been making more sense than much of his so-called "party leadership". Time for them to retreat to their country clubs inside the gated communities . . with championship golf, of course!

"By the way, am I the only one who thinks there's a creepy resemblance between Ted Cruz and Joe McCarthy?"

I see more of a resemblance between Cruz, Trent Franks, and David Schweikert. They all have germanic epicanthal folds / downturned eyes and similar brown hair. Facially speaking, Cruz often reminds me of a particularly crafty raccoon.

Rogue wrote:

"The number of Bolsheviks in Tsarist Russia were only around 25,000 in a nation of 160 million. Yet Lenin was able to persuade and terrorize enough army units to revolt against the state."

I don't want to pose as any sort of expert on this subject, but I don't think there is any comparison between Tsarist Russia toward the end of WW I and the United States today.

Essentially, the state fell apart. The new Red Army was composed, like the old Tsarist army, primarily of peasants. The Bolsheviks were in power and sanctioned the seizure of land by the peasants. That was the primary concern of the latter: keeping the land they had seized for themselves. It was not difficult to convince them that the Whites would reverse these land grabs and restore the previous owners, and that the Bolsheviks, as the government actually in power, were the only means by which this could be prevented. (Remember, the party of the peasants was the Socialist Revolutionary Party, but the Bolsheviks had suppressed this after some terroristic assassination plots/attempts conducted by the SRs.)

So, the question was not who would fight, but who would lead them. Initially there was some recruitment of former imperial officers but mainly the officer corps were Communists organized by Leon Trotsky.

There is no comparable revolutionary organization among tea-partiers; the country has not collapsed as Tsarist Russia did as massive numbers of peasant troops revolted and deserted en masse from the front during WW I to return home. There have not been years of violent protests and riots wracking the nation. We do not have mass starvation or a serf-like tenant farming system.

A right-wing revolution would need the broad support of the middle class to succeed. There is no Communist threat uniting the corporate and middle classes as there was in fascist countries like Italy and Germany.

Talks of secession (by tea-party radicals) are hot air and hopelessly out of touch with reality. There is no chance whatsoever that the leaders of any state would attempt this today. They can sign petitions until doomsday.

What might occur is that if a sufficient polarization occurs, between conservative dominated state legislatures and governorships on the one hand, and the federal government on the other, is that a movement among states to test the federal government on the margins may occur.

We see this already (minus the conservative motive) in the issue of legalized marijuana. States that allow this are in clear violation of federal law. The federal authorities, at present, have chosen to look the other way provided that certain lines are not crossed.

Incidentally, the number of Party members (Bolshevik) fluctuated greatly by year and enlarged significantly at about the time of the 1917 revolution and considerably more after the October revolution which brought the Bolsheviks to power.

Skippy, we are still waiting for the polls ' names that show your uninformed claim that voters don't hold Republicans mostly responsible for the loss of economic activity and jobs caused by the Republican initiated showdown on the debt ceiling and government showdown.

Secession talk by Tea Party radicals may be hot air, but North America would be better governed with a break up of sorts between the states. For those with roots east of the Mississippi the regionalism of the North and South divide run deep to this day. The heartland populace largely despises the values of California and greatly mistrusts the east coast establishment. Texas is of course Texas.

So why not consider options other than the current political organization of North America?

If Libya or Syria is not allowed to reorganize or break up politically along geographic and cultural lines, how is that going to happen in the USA?

If California or the West Coast becomes its own country, does Arizona lose its straw in the Colorado River? Will Mexico reestablish the border at the Nueces River or will Texas conquer New Mexico and that pesky Oklahoma?

Nice post Emil. I'll add that it was the Social Democrats that the Bolsheviki usurped, thanks mostly to their disastrous decision to continue the war. From that point on it was divide and conquer the Tsarists, the warlord wanna-bes, the Anarchists, the various national movements. They were helped tremendously that the Whites (Tsarists) had no cred with the serfs, and given a choice between killing Bolsheviks (Reds) or Whites, the peasants preferred to slaughter their current oppressors rather than their future oppressors.

Government is not always incompetent. MVD is a lot better than it used to be. I've worked at a lot of places in the private sector that are incompetent too.

No, there is no secession in the plan. Koch needs to disrupt, but not destroy the infrastructure on the ground. Things are looking dire for the oil mongers.

Arizona Republic, ‘Power Company Comes Clean: We Bankrolled Arizona’s Anti-Solar Blitz’. “Over the weekend, the fight took an interesting turn: The utility, the Arizona Public Service Company (APS), outed itself as a funder of two secretive nonprofits fueling the anti-solar fight - - and revealed that it had funneled its anti-solar money through a political operative associated with the Koch brothers and their donor network. “
This is how a fading industry wages war.

I will withdraw my statement of Oct 22 regarding the polls on the shutdown...I've again searched Facebook and cannot find what I had copied, so...I'll withdraw those stats.

Having said that...I still feel that by the time election 2014 is here, the GOP WILL make more gains than most "Media" think and report (remember...most of the Media is biased and is favorable to Obama.

But...the "spokesperson for the WH said that the web site is designed for 50,000 hits per day!...that means about 16 years is needed for everyone to enroll?

And now they talk about a delay in signing up....that's what the GOP asked for in their last proposal to the Senate...and REID would not even bring it up for a vote!

I'd like to know how the following report has ANY credibility to Obama's talking about " working together" in Congress. This will just give more ammonia to the GOP and others who say "bullshit"...you want to create more hate and discontent, and have NO idea what transparency in Government is.

Here is the latest news:

The Director of the Office of Health reform at the Department of Health and Human Services, will brief House Democrats only Wednesday about the ObamaCare fiasco in a closed door session.

As reported by The Washington Post, the briefing by Director Mike Hash marks the first time the Obama administration will have briefed members of Congress on the online enrollment system since its troubled rollout three weeks ago on Oct. 1.

HHS Director Kathleen Sebelius will not be attending the briefing, citing “scheduling conflicts” as the reason. One wonders what could possibly be more of a priority for the secretary than to personally address the catastrophic rollout of a massive program for which she was ultimately responsible.

Instead, Sebelius found it appropriate to publish a blog post detailing some of the efforts the administration is undertaking to fix HealthCare.gov, the mostly-unusable ObamaCare portal.

So, why did Team Obama choose to only brief Congressional Democrats? Behind closed doors no less? House Majority Leader John Boehner want to know, as well. crying foul over the controversial decision that is sure to add fuel to the fire. Late Tuesday, Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said.

“All members – as well as the American people – deserve answers for this debacle. That’s why we have asked the administration to provide the same briefing to House Republicans. This snub is all the more offensive after Secretary Sebelius declined to testify at a House hearing this week. It’s time for the Obama administration to honor its promises of transparency and face some accountability.”

Buck is right–across the board. The American people, above all, deserve answers and they deserve them now. Many are without health insurance as a direct result of this mess – having had their coverage cancelled by employers in anticipation of the ObamaCare rollout. Republicans are rightly offended by the sheer audacity of Kathleen Sebelius’ refusal to answer questions, smugly choosing to put up a blog post instead.

As for the administration honoring it promises of transparency, Mr. Speaker, that hollow promise went out the window years ago. And that “accountability” thing? Yeah, good luck with that.

Skip, there is something wrong with your statement, "Many are without health insurance as a direct result of this mess – having had their coverage cancelled by employers in anticipation of the ObamaCare rollout."

None of the ACA takes effect until Jan 1st. So if there was some sort of misunderstanding by "having had insurance cancelled by an employer", then that really is not the fault of Sebelius. I would say that is the fault of the person who prematurely canceled their insurance.

Skip, people have 6 months to sign-up for insurance or apply for Medicaid (AHCCCS in Arizona) before they may be penalized for not having insurance. Each state should have a web site where they can go to find out what is available in their state.

Suzanne....I did not say "Many are without health insurance"..
That is what the New York Post wrote...that information I posted is from the Story in the New York Post.
It is my understanding that there ARE people that have been notified that as of a certain date..their present insurance is cancelled due to Obamacare..and they are NOT able to obtain insurance via the ACA yet to cover when their insurance cancellation goes into effect...and, they are amazed at the price increase for less coverage!
The Had of the Insurance Dept for the State of Georgia has written the President, reportedly, because the costs for the ACA are coming in at 198% HIGHER than they originally had been told..
all in all, it's a mess...and now NBC is reporting that the Government is planning to add another 6 weeks to the application period time limit because the system is a total failure..(after working for 3 years on it and spending upwards of $400-$600 MILLION dollars, depending on who you want to quote..

Skip, it would be invaluable if you could link the sources you are paraphrasing. It would give us all a chance to look at the information and discuss thereafter.

It is possible that there could be some inaccuracies in your interpretation or you could have missed something as I did recently with the H.R. 368 debacle that needed some clarification. More information is welcomed but it is somewhat ... insincere to not post where that information can be found.

"I'm convinced there are people who are simply not capable of living in a multicultural society. I'm tired of being dragged down by them. Let 'em go." -Diane D'Angelo

Even is some states were serious about secession, one of my biggest concerns would be the people we leave behind who are powerless. Are you willing to abandon those Americans? I'm not. While there are some progressives, Democrats, and liberals who could afford to leave the "New Confederacy" there are many more, especially minorities, who could not pick up so easily to live somewhere they might be more welcomed.

Yes, I'm reacting emotionally. I'm just sick and tired of self-pitying Tea Partiers who read Ayn Rand and whine about losing their dominance (through lies about Obama, the ACA, liberals, etc.). The amount of implicit entitlement boggles the mind. As for secession, I don't know that we have much choice in the matter. Who's to say that a nation lasts forever (or even should)? I suppose even saying this is considered blasphemous in some circles and will just add to the NSA file I got as result of being involved with Occupy Phoenix OFFICIAL, but so be it. America is just as much an idea as it is a country. Maybe that idea has run its course.

I'm no computer whiz, but it has occurred to me that piggybacking the Affordable Care Act's computer needs onto the existing SS and Medicare sites might have been more successful than what we have been seeing.

Additionally: "The purpose of the U.S. Constitution as stated in the preamble, is pretty clear: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The GOP threatening to shut down the government, threatening to default on its bills, does the reverse of promoting domestic tranquility and general welfare. It creates domestic turmoil and general chaos."

The U.S. is much more than an idea and this nation, being one of the least homogeneous, will no doubt have to deal with these rifts over time. The problem begins with those less able to deal with change. I don't consider them to be a long-term problem. Maybe I am naive. However, Americans continue to mix and mingle more than populations of other nations and the younger generations are key. Unlike our baby boomer predecessors, we don't just talk of change and inclusion, we live it. My generation is the most inclusive in U.S. history. We have mixed-race children, more interracial marriages (even in the South and Texas), and defy our parents' standards and choose not to live in suburban wastelands (again, this is the trend even in Texas and the South). Gay marriage isn't even an issue with us. Despite talk of right-wingers permeating the military on Rogue Columnist, acceptance of non-traditional families, including gays, has been unprecedented thanks to the younger ranks. As a nation, we've only just begun to run this course.

Cal, when have trees not fallen? The choice now is not to runaway from our problems, instead it is to run straight at them. It seems to me that so many of our nation's ills stem from secrecy and a willingness to turn a blind eye. The U.S. has never been a perfect union: from slavery to mass production of "lynching postcards" as souvenirs as late as the 60s, for instance.

I'm not trying to quickly brush aside headless' snide remark with another, but if you are asking me if I am pleased with the progress made by my generation, if I am pleased that as a gay man I can date a man of any race and not be lynched or killed by a mob (even in Atlanta), that I can serve my country openly, and that mixed-race individuals, non-traditional families, etc. only seem to cause issues for certain older Americans? Then yes, I am damn pleased with the progress made and why stop now?

I would tend to the side of caution phxsunfan, there are still places in this country where your life could be in danger and I recommend no travel to Russia for a few years. I have no opposition to gay. However I choose not to be as it excludes more than half the worlds population that I can have sex with.

"Forty some years ago, there were about 33% of Arizona drivers driving around without car insurance...Mama government instituted MANDATORY CAR INSURANCE with the resultant bureaucracy...Forty some years later, 27% of Arizona drivers are driving without car insurance."

Figures showing the current percentage of uninsured drivers by state vary considerably on the Web. You don't state the source of these figures.

According to AAA (citing the widely respected Insurance Research Council) just 12 percent of Arizona drivers are uninsured. The national figure is 13.8 percent. (This is from 2009.)

Also, Arizona made auto insurance mandatory in 1983, which is 20 years, not 40.

Figures for the percentage of ininsured drivers in Arizona prior to 1983 are difficult to come by.

According to another industry source, the Insurance Information Institute, mandatory insurance laws in most states have not been effective in reducing the percentage of uninsured drivers.

But in states where mandatory insurance laws are well designed, the percentage is very low: just 4 percent in Massachusetts, where drivers must show proof of insurance before being able to register a vehicle. And in states where verification and/or enforcement is weak, like Mississippi, the rate of uninsured drivers is high, 28 percent.

Cruz-LBJ resemblence is better except where it comes to politic'ing and strong-arming senators and representatives. LBJ would have gotten all the concessions and favors he could have before the law was passed, and although he was prone to tantrums, he not do so publically thinking it was a winning political strategy. I'm not a big fan of LBJ (Vietnam, the Camelot Cabinet holdovers), but he was one savvy politician.

Have we been one big experiment that is now failing right at the time that the promises of our forefathers are starting to )bear fruit (marriage equality, growing "minority", etc.)? Have we been embracing the ideals of our founding fathers until we have actually had to put them forward and the balance is beginning to tip? Was this all a good idea as long as the WASP was in charge?

Headless, Name the band that became the Grateful Dead
and name the three Bohemians doing drugs while cruising HWY 1 in CA in a car that resembles a upside down bathtub.
(REB U name the car)
no fair goggling.

The Beach Boys and Johnny Rivers became Hippies, as did many artists who wanted to catch that particular wave. I always thought that the appellation 'Hippie' was some sort of lame media label for something that they did not really understand.

To me it reads as if Mailer believes the Hipster "ethis" (of the 20s through the 50s) was superficial and most Hipsters never really had true multicultural friendships. As if they were only borrowing others culture for a time before retreating to their real world.

Wow calling an Adbuster fan a post punk nihilist is heavy. Mailer was a genuis but he thought JFK was an existential. I don't buy that for a second. And per you and phxsunfans subscription I guess that makes Aldous Huxley, Allen Gunsberg an William Borroughs irrelevant.
PS they were in the 49 Hudson on hwy 1

As for the Mailer essay, it is important to note that I am reading it through the cultural lens of today. "Emulating" and "borrowing" read to me as descriptors for someone who is inauthentic. You don't have to act a certain way to like something that is different. I also didn't have time to read it closely, but some of the terms in the essay are definitely anachronistic or have a different meaning now. Which means things could have been "lost in translation." When I think of a Hipster today, I definitely don't think of people "emulating" another culture or someone from one particular race.

"Drivers take out short term coverage in order to register their vehicle. Then they let the coverage lapse."

Well, no. If you'd bothered to do your homework instead of making something up to support your predetermined, politically motivated opinion, you might have found this:

"Because auto insurance is mandatory, you can only cancel your required insurance coverages if you return your license plates to the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) or if you switch to a new insurance company. If you are canceling your policy without starting a new one, your insurance company will require you to send them a plate receipt from the RMV before they will cancel your policy. Please note that if your plates are lost or stolen you must obtain a lost/stolen plate receipt from the RMV and provide this receipt to your insurance company in order to cancel your policy."

AzReb, it's also true that in the private sector rules are sometimes broken, procedures aren't followed, employees are overworked and/or understaffed. Sometimes the rules there ARE followed but they're just STUPID because management is STUPID and DISCONNECTED.

Decades ago I used to go to The Coffee Plantation in Tempe fairly regularly. The men's bathroom had a chart on the inside of the door where employees had to check-off and initial a variety of cleaning tasks to accomplish, including mopping the floor every half-hour. I suppose this was intended to insure cleanliness and inspire confidence in customers.

The problem was that this was a popular place serving a diuretic substance, and that meant a lot of visits to the restroom for a pee. Instead of keeping the bathroom clean, constant mopping, during business hours, kept it filthy: the floor never had a chance to properly dry before the next user came in, and the water dissolved the dirt which is on the bottoms of everyone's shoes (naturally, because they are used to walk on the ground and floors constantly and nobody ever washes the bottoms of their shoes).

A single visit (spot inspection) to the bathroom during hours by management could have revealed the problem (assuming management could have admitted its flawed policy instead of assuming that the employees simply weren't mopping often enough or were lying when they said they did). A single report by an employee could have revealed the problem (assuming management was listening and open to suggestions and didn't assume that the employee making the report was just trying to get policy changed to do less work).

I put notes in the suggestion box to management revealing the problem, and suggesting a simple fix: mop the floors either before or after business hours and give them plenty of time to dry thoroughly; obviously, beverage or other spills would be the exception and require spot-cleaning.

The problem was never fixed. I went there several times a week for a period of years, and the bathroom was always filthy. There was no accountability. This didn't, however, make the place any less popular. It was always packed. For that matter, their coffee sucked. Always packed. If anybody ever voted with their wallet I never noticed. I went there in an attempt to socialize and/or divert myself with something passing for vitality and night-life, not for the product.

The point of this little illustration is simply this: if you are expecting perfection in either government or private business in this world, then YOU are the one living in a fantasy-land. You are offering a libertarian critique of government but you have double standards and a jaundiced eye.

P.S. You're also simply ASSUMING that the Massachussets law doesn't work. First you assumed simply that mandatory auto insurance laws don't work. When I suggested an instance where they do work, backing this up with reasons as well as a statistic from an independent private firm widely respected for its insurance analytics, you invented a fictitious loophole. When I pointed out that the loophole didn't exist, and documented this, you simply assumed that the procedures aren't followed in practice. But the fact that only 4% of Massachusetts' motorists drive uninsured (the lowest in the nation) speaks for itself.